Wednesday, 30 April 2008

Coming as I do from a liturgical background, I’ve been significantly enlivened by the contemporary / missional reengagement and creative re:mixing of the Catholic-Anglican practices of praying. Specifically I’m thinking of The Missio Dei Breviary, developed and published by the Missio Dei community (in Minneapolis, Minnesota).

But first, a little background in respect of "breviary's":

In liturgical language the (Roman) Catholic breviary was a book that set out the regulations for the celebration of Mass (‘Breviarium Ecclesiastici Ordinis’).

The name “has been extended to books which contain in one volume, or at least in one work, liturgical books of different kinds, such as the Psalter, the Antiphonary, the Responsoriary, the Lectionary, etc.” In Roman Catholic terms it has come to include the following: the Psalter; the Proper of the Season (e.g. the lessons, psalms, prayers/responses etc for, for example Advent, or Lent etc); Proper of the Saints (e.g. the lessons, psalms, antiphons, and other liturgical formularies for the feasts of the saints); the Common; certain special Offices (e.g. the office for the dead).

In essence, a breviary is a prayer book for daily prayer, historically most commonly associated with clergy (some have called it a “priest’s prayer book”) and monks. You might also hear it referred to as the “daily office”, the “divine office”, or the “liturgy of the hours”.

“The prayer of the Breviary is meant to be used daily; each day has its own Office; in fact it would be correct to say that each hour of the day has its own office, for, liturgically, the day is divided into hours founded on the ancient Roman divisions of the day, of three hours apiece – Prime, Terce, Sext, None, and Vespers, and the night Vigils.” There was also Compline which was prayed as night fell.

“Each of the hours of the Office in the Roman Liturgy is composed of the same elements: psalms (and now and then canticles), antiphons (often a verse taken from a psalm), responsories, hymns, lessons (readings from Scripture, the Church Fathers, and /or commentators on Scripture e.g. excerpts from homilies/sermons), versicles, little chapters, and collects (prayers).”

In Anglican practice, the approach to prayer is often less complex and focuses on morning and evening worship featuring psalms, OT, NT, and Gospel readings. They also have prayer book liturgies for morning, midday, and evening prayer.

Now, back to the Missio Dei Breviary. It’s a whole lot less complex, and therefore more accessible (and considerably less expensive) than the ‘traditional’ four volume “liturgy of the hours”. It is a prayerbook for the ordinary person.

Tuesday, 29 April 2008

Paul writes – Another interesting interview with NT. Wright by Trevin Wax (24th April 2008). Excerpts below. Full interview here. Also, good news is, God willing, that Wright intends to write his big book on Paul at the end of 2009. Volume four in his projected five-volume Christian Origins and the Question of God project.

“…We don’t know how the kingdom works. Take Jesus’ parables about seeds growing secretly and small seeds becoming mustard bushes and so on. The kingdom is always a surprise to us, which keeps us humble. The danger with “building the kingdom” language can make us very proud. “Building for the kingdom” keeps you humble. It says, “These are your tasks; you’ve got to get on with them. How God puts them into the eventual construct is completely his business.”

“…It dawned on me several years ago that when somebody says “no” to God and refuses to worship the God in whose image they are made, saying “I’m not going to worship that God,” then what happens to their humanness is that it progressively ceases to bear the image of God. You become like what you worship. You reflect the one you worship. It’s one of the great truths of spirituality…”

Saturday, 26 April 2008

“Thomas Merton did not choose to keep his most personal writing secret. He provided for his diaries to be released 25 years after his death. This biography combines the details of those diaries with the more widely known and published circumstances of his life.

Within these pages Merton reveals his hopes and his dreams against the backdrop of an incredibly turbulent period of social change that both frightened and energized him. We witness his love of the rich Cistercian tradition and his adjustment to its evolving practices following Vatican II…he confides to us the difficulties he had in everyday relationships. He chose to be remembered as a monk who was only too human, determined that his most human faults should be revealed. He wanted his readers to believe that the principles he espoused are in fact practicable for anyone, not just those who live like a saint. He proved he had flaws by carefully recording them. It was a most generous gift…”

You can get a copy of Tom Merton: A Personal Biography by Joan C. McDonald from here.

Friday, 25 April 2008

Paul writes – I came across this in my reading recently. It challenged and pushed against some of my misunderstandings about prayer that have grown since my youngest days. I was reminded of this in a recent conversation. Somehow we think that the kind of prayer described below is something that we grow out of, as though there are “levels” of prayer that we pass through as we “grow-up”. Sure, there ARE many different ways of praying; different prayer practices, BUT I think McCabe (below) is reminding us that we’re never not a child of God, and so there’s nothing “childish” about asking for what we need.

…prayer is good for us first of all because in prayer … we understand more deeply that we are children of God and that he is our loving Father. And there is nothing selfish about … [asking for what we want and need]. It’s normal human behaviour. What would you think of a child who never asked her parents for anything? What would her parents think of her? Would they think her to be unselfish?

When you pray, consider what you want and need and never mind how vulgar or childish it might appear. If you want very much to pass that exam or get to know that boy or girl better, that is what you should pray for… When you pray you must come before God as honestly as you can. There is no point pretending to him. One of the great human values of prayer is that you face the facts about yourself and admit to what you want; and you know you can talk about this to God because he is totally loving and accepting [though many struggle with images of God where God is neither of these things!]. In true prayer you must meet God and meet yourself where you really are. For prayer is a bit of a risk. If you pray and acknowledge your most infantile desires, there is every danger that you may grow up a bit, that God will grow you up. When (as honestly as you can) you speak to God of your desires, very gently and tactfully he will often reveal to you that in fact you have deeper and more mature desires. But there is only one way to find this out: to start from where you are…

Prayer is the way in which our Father in heaven leads each of us by different paths to be … with him.

[Also we need to understand that] there is no such thing as unanswered prayer (if it is real prayer, and not just going through the motions. Either God will give you what you ask, and this is extremely common; or else he will reckon that you are ready now to receive more than you asked. To you at the time, and especially to an outside observer, it may look as though your prayer has not been answered. But, as you will recognise some time later, God has been getting you to understand that your deeper desire was for more than you asked for. If you let this continue he will gradually lead you to realizing that what you really do want above all things is himself…”[1]

Thursday, 24 April 2008

Paul writes – I like the following statement from Andrew Perriman, author of the excellent little book Re:Mission – Biblical Mission for a Post-Biblical Church (2007 / a review with be forthcoming). Thanks to Len Hjalmarson, I’ve read a lot of Perriman’s reflections over the last few days, and found much that both resonates and stretches my own thinking.

“…I think that we still have some way to go in collectively re-imagining the content of the ‘good news’ and its implications for [the gospel & culture conversation, and] the life of the people of God…

“…The missional challenge that we face in the West, in the absence of persecution, is to demonstrate the fullness of God’s alternative way of being human. It may sound a bit alarming but I think that discipleship construed simply as following Jesus is too narrow…”

You can read the full article from which this quote is excerpted, here. It is an appreciative (yet at times critical) engagement with Alan Hirsch’s book, The Forgotten Ways.

Tuesday, 22 April 2008

Paul writes – I mentioned (here) a couple of lectures by Rowan Williams that I’d found really interesting. Here are a couple of questions (in blue) from listeners in Westminster Abbey, and his responses. The latter one in particular resonates for me. The audience would clearly dictate how you communicated what Williams is saying, but in my view the content is a much-neglected theme in what it means to follow Jesus…Jesus draws us into a fuller, deeper, and richer experience of what it means to be human; what it means to be created in the image of God.

Reference to “saints” reminded me of a conversation on Saturday where a group of us were reflecting on the kinds of tools / helps / metaphors & (general) resources that have proven (or might prove) helpful for journeying with males who were wanting to deepen their prayer lives. One person suggested "saints" as being important and needful. Williams fleshes out something of why.

·I find it hard to believe. What comfort can you give me of God's existence?

“…But what comfort can I give in respect of God's existence? I think I can say that for me what is most compelling is the fact that there are people, as human as I am, for whom trust in God transfigures everything: people whose lives, emotions, priorities and visions are completely shaped by that belief in such a way that the human life that emerges is compellingly attractive. 'I want to be human like that'. When I look at some of these lives, even one Saint at the very least suggests that something else is possible. And if you can trust the instinct of a Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Desmond Tutu, a Mother Teresa, and say 'that's where humanity comes through most obviously, then somehow their belief helps to make yours possible. Establishing the existence of God is not simply a matter of abstract argument, it's a matter of whether you find lives like that, trustworthy, worthy of respect, worthy of imitation…”

·What is so compelling today about Christianity? Why can't I just be a modern, good pagan?

“… But what's compelling for me is that I know of no system, religious or secular that is so wonderfully ambitious about humanity. Christianity claims that our humanity is 'open at the top’; it can grow into a fullness of joy and liberty that is part of God's own joy and liberty without limit. And when you see that kind of immense horizon opening up in actual prosaic human lives like yours and mine: that has about it something compelling and attractive. The good pagan, I would say, for all his or her admirable qualities, will end up living in a rather smaller world than that. Part of the attraction of the offer of Christianity is living in a larger world, a world that takes human potential as seriously as God takes it. And I think that is in a world where often humanity is being shrunk and distorted by our systems and our ideologies and our politics, that sense of taking humanity with the seriousness God takes it and seeing that immeasurable possibility ahead of a joy that's continuous with God's own joy: I think that's worth believing.”

Monday, 21 April 2008

Paul writes – Imagine if we read Scripture in the following way; allowing space…space to listen, space to sit with Scripture; space within which we are formed and shaped. Space within which we encounter Jesus, Jesus most mysteriously and profoundly God incarnate.

Imagine if Scripture was filled with “holes” and that these holes make space for God and a hermeneutic of surprise. Imagine if these holes stop us from holding to tightly to what we presently understand as ‘truth’? Holes speak to me of the apophatic tradition and I for one appreciate that our holy texts are full of holy and needful holes, though I can’t explain it. Somehow they enable a way of reading that is animated and open to a hermeneutic of love, spaciousness, warmth, generosity and graciousness:

Imagine the kinds of conversations holes (or “gaps”) make space for… We live in “gaps” between our present realities and what might be – the already-and-the-not-yet.

“The holy texts are full of holes, holes waiting for informed and imaginative readers to fill them in, to make present what is absent, that being some other part of the interacting canon. Vast portions of the Bible are mnemonic triggers, set to create intertextual exchanges.”Dale Alison via a comment on Len Hjalmarson’s blog]

I’m thinking here (again) also of Jeffrey McCurry’s paper, Towards a Poetics of Theological Creativity. More on this here and here. Holes make spaces for “Inflected Interpreted Performances.” Holes or gaps are also the places in which we find ourselves as we engage with Scripture – we’re in an “in-between” place – between the (less-than-ideal) realities of our own lives, and the “not-yetness” of the hope and promises held out to us in Scripture and centered on Jesus. “Holes” in Scripture are liminal spaces, in-between spaces for prayer, the contemplative, and the slow work of formation and transformation. May we be less 'certain' and more willing to sit in holes...

Saturday, 19 April 2008

Paul writes – Over the last week I’ve listened to three lectures by Rowan Williams. They’ve all been fascinating in places, but two of the three “Holy Week” lectures have stood out for me: Faith and Politics, and Faith and History. An excerpt from the later is set out below. It again reinforces theological reflection that has been important to me for many years.

Double-click on each title (above) to find the audio recording and transcript of each. They are downloadable as Mp3's which you can listen too at you leisure. The lectures were delivered in Westminster Abbey over Holy Week 2008.

“…the Church in particular [is] a community within society, that sees itself as a kind of 'citizens' body', as offering to the rest of society a distinctive set of beliefs about what makes human beings human – prompts the question of how the Church came into being, and the relation of its faith to historical events.

If we do indeed believe that a radically new possibility has come into the world, both of knowing about human beings and of acting humanly, that something new has entered into the world that affects the definition of human destiny, how exactly is such a belief brought into being? In its earliest phases of development this belief rests on the view at its very heart, that Jesus of Nazareth has re-defined what's involved in being human. And that is expressed in a variety of images and metaphors in the New Testament. Here is the image of God in humanity restored. Here is the second Adam, the beginning of the human race renewed. Here is the 'firstborn of all creation'. There's a powerful sense in the New Testament, that whatever else is said about Jesus of Nazareth, one thing has to be underlined: there is a beginning of something here. And that is the beginning of precisely that sense of an enlarged, expanded humanity, capable of things of which humanity was not capable before. Thus the events of the life of Jesus are understood as new beginning, as a gift and a breakthrough. Jesus doesn't simply appear as the natural conclusion of a long process and no more: something is introduced into our world and into our language by the events of his life. And that of course means that if certain things are not true about Jesus within the framework of history, there is no new definition of human destiny and there is no new possibility in being human…”

Both lectures are well worth a careful listen, if you have time, over the course of the weekend.

Friday, 18 April 2008

Paul writes – Australian Baptist minister, fellow wayfarer and explorer Andrew Menzies reflects on incarnation and missional presence in the midst of the ordinary and the everyday. He contrasts his experience with the decision not to go to a large missional conference.

Having spent some time with Andrew last year, and hearing something of his story, I wasn’t surprised by the reflection. I don’t read it as a dig at missional conferences per se. We’ve all been to them. We’ve needed to in the early stages of our exploration. Some of us will go to the occasional conference, but more and more of us are electing to do what Andrew did (see this reflection also). We’re wanting to discern God and God’s activity in the ordinary and everyday. We’re wanting to engage (action-reflection-action) with Luke 10: 1-12 (one of a number of my reflections on the passage, here) and other biblical texts. It’s worth a read.

“…We had a big missional conference here in Melbourne last weekend (actually they didn’t call it a conference – they called it a festival -but it really was a conference!) There were a number of people flown in from all over the world and the nation for it. Hundreds enrolled and I am told by all accounts filled main sessions and workshops. There were even some co-bloggers from The Missional Journey flown to it!

I didn’t go...

…I think that what was going on at the deepest level inside my non-attendance was that I am sick and tired of hearing theory from experts (of which I must confess I am one). Instead my wife and I had our own missional conference! We invited some friends around for a meal, we walked the dog in the park with neighbours, we drank coffee at a local café, our kids played at the park on the trams for hours, we went to church on Sunday morning and I went to the football with an old university friend I hadn’t seen for ages.

I had such a great weekend…”

For the full reflection, go here. Something of the conversation resonated (for me) with a very useful conversation that I had yesterday afternoon. At one point I struggled for language to explain what I meant at one point (something about God’s future being amongst the people of God, appreciative enquiry (this book is an excellent introduction to the topic and its practice. For a great 20 minute talk by its author, together with some engagement from his students at Fuller, go here. Right-click on the audio Mp3 button to download), finding God in the ordinary, (deep and prayerful listening), discernment and imaginative responses). Andrew however articulates a strand of my conversation very well. One of the fellow conversationalists also came to my help later in the conversation with a couple of great stories.

Wednesday, 16 April 2008

Paul writes – As you’d expect, Anglican Bishop Tom Wright, has some interesting things to say about the mission-shaped church, the proposed Anglican covenant, Lambeth, conflict, and the Bible. His uplifting overview (can’t tell if it’s him or something he’s quoting from a report) of the Biblical narrative from creation to re~creation is a gem, as is his reflection on 2 Corinthians and “super apostles”. For more on this, see the little Lenten book by Wright referred to in this post.

Here’s a couple of excerpts from his paper:

“… the church, in its very life as well as in what it says to communities and individuals, [is] … indeed the missionary body of Christ, the community at which the principalities and powers look and realise, perhaps with an angry shock, that Jesus is Lord and they are not; the community at which ordinary people look and realise, perhaps with an eager start, that there is after all a different way to be human and that they want to find out what makes it tick.

Let the Bible shape your eschatology; let that biblical eschatology shape your mission; and then let that eschatologically-shaped mission shape your view of the church; and you'll find that, instead of the shrill functional pragmatism of today's muddled left, insisting on breaking old rules because they're outdated, and the equally shrill and functional pragmatism of today's muddled right, insisting on keeping old rules because they're the old rules even at the cost of unity, you will have a robust, biblical, Christ-centred, Spirit-led, costly ecclesiology that will be in good shape to take forward God's mission into the next generation…

…The late, great Lesslie Newbigin was once asked whether, when he looked at the church, he was an optimist or a pessimist. I make his reply my own. I am neither an optimist, nor a pessimist: Jesus Christ is risen from the dead!”

The typically thoughtful Peter Carrell, an Anglican priest from the Diocese of Nelson, has a few thoughts here on Lambeth.

You can read the whole paper by Wright here (and I’d recommend it, particularly if you are an Anglican who wants to be both inspired and who wants to keep up with good thinking around the proposed “covenant” etc. I don’t like the use of the term “covenant”, but that’s what we have at the moment).